6th & 7th August, Saturday & Sunday

It started off a lovely day.  I caught the bus to Peebles from Broughton.  I should have taken pictures of Broughton before I left but didn’t…  It has a little brewery and a John Buchan museum in an old church which only opens 2 – 5.  I caught the first bus to Peebles, at 10 and looked around Peebles, setting off on the John Buchan Way at 11.30.  As it is 13 miles there was only a slim chance of me making the museum.

Peebles High Street

John Buchan and his brother were solicitors and this was their office building – it has been shortened to widen the road and the red doorway was on the front, not the return.

Looking back at Peebles

And ahead 

 

Curiously yellow sheep (one escapee)

 

Black and tan (sheep and crows)

The Tweed

Stobo Kirk

This had a Norman archway.  Which made me wonder how far north the Norman influence moved.

 

Arrows were sharpened on the porch arch

Empty swallows’ or martins’ nests.  When I was in the Trossachs with John and Mary we observed swallows building nests….

 

… and bluebells have given way to harebells

The burning bush

 

St Kentigern surprisingly baptizing Merlin

The weather for the first hour or so’s walking was perfect walking weather but then it started raining on and off.  After Stobo Kirk, which is about half way through the walk it started to rain steadily and didn’t stop.

Ideas for decorating your shed

Another fine tree

Broughton House, John Buchan’s mother had lived here.  It looked rather unloved and it seems it has been or is being split up into flats.  It doesn’t look as if it is a success.

Wonderful gate pillars

Obsessional gardener in Broughton Village

At 4.45 I came to the Broughton’s Tea Rooms and still had 3/4 mile to go to reach the Buchan museum and so cake and tea won.

I missed finding out more about John Buchan who wrote more non-fiction that fiction.  Some of his non-fiction was trying to raise morale during WWI – he served in the government as Director of Information.   In 1935 he was appointed Governor General of Canada and died in 1940 shortly after signing Canada’s formal entry into WWII His brother was a local historian as well as a solicitor and their sister also wrote books, under the pseudonym O Douglas. 

Since then it has not stopped raining (it’s now Sunday evening) and I am back in the Jedburgh camp site as it has good wifi connection.  And I’ve got heating on to try to dry the walking things out.

Tomorrow – well, it depends on the weather!